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#2 From the Algerians point of view, having endured 10 years+ of Islamic terrorism, its a win. They've already suffered large numbers of civilian causalities to the jihadists, so they've been taught by the enemy that such casualties are inevitable, so the best approach is to kill them as fast as they can to get the business done as quickly as possible. By ignoring the outside interests and stupid diplo games, it also says that game ain't played here.

#4 impossible to get numbers straight in this melee. how many foreigners were finally rescued ... how many are dead? surely they must know this stuff. this is worse than the Japanese Gov't and the Fukushima debacle.

#13 I don't have a problem with the Algerians moving quickly on the terrorists. However, if they did gun down several vehicles loaded with hostages - the western governments (and hostages relatives) are going to seriously question that move. People will be understandably very angry.

the main problem with this situation has been the extremely confused communications coming from Algeria. How many hostages alive ... how many dead? 10? 30? 60? is the operation still underway, or finished??? It's been absolutely impossible to make sense of the reports filtering out into the media. The Algerians will learn painfully that they need to pass out good information .... they can control the timing however they want. But they need to make sure whatever is said - is accurate. This situation has been a communications fiasco for them.

The Algerians acted immediately, probably to forestall any ransoms being handed over to the kidnappers by Western governments. The thought of millions or tens of millions of dollars filling jihadist coffers and being used against them for years was probably too much to take. Not to mention that this would have provided seed money for more of such fund-raising operations. Ultimately, the liquidation of experienced jihadist leaders will weaken the movement within Algeria's borders, and that was probably another important objective of the attack on the kidnappers. This was less a rescue mission than a prime opportunity to attack jihadists who had emerged from their hideouts and were vulnerable.

The benefit of this operation is that jihadists will undertake fewer missions to capture hostages. They now know that the Algerian government views hostages merely as bait to lure jihadist operatives out of hiding, where they can be dispatched with ease, without any special regard for the safety of the captives.

#17 sad to say but most of those killed were already as good as dead the minute they were taken. The Algerians did us a favor (I'm sure you disagree if you had a family member there) by not allowing the throat-slitting videos, captive demands, ruining Obama's ascension......

now run down the rest of this group, and kill their funders, their spokesholes, their hangers-on...the rest.

#19 By launching this attack on the kidnappers and being completely unconcerned about the fate of the Western hostages, the Algerian government has just blown apart jihadist propaganda about it being a Western puppet. That, too, was probably a positive side effect of this operation for the regime. All the locals got away scot free, while the foreigners were slaughtered like sheep, so there's no question about who's in charge - not the US, not Britain or any other member of Dar al Harb.

It will be interesting to see who or what entity or state is masterminding Algeria and Mali ops. Got to take out the brain and financiers. Then we will get somewhere. Imams or Mad Mullahs go bump in the night.